Dash and I pulling pranks on the guards was exactly what I needed. With the rest of the entourage a while away, we needed something to preoccupy our time. My invisibility just made it all the easier. Being capable of creating any supplies we might have needed was just icing on the cake. By the time the rest of our group arrived there wasn't a single pony we hadn't managed to nail. Ponies all over had been hit with shaving cream, confetti, itching powder, pepper, pie, feathers, toilet paper, and a few other items that had the two of us giggling like idiots. We managed to stop the goofy behavior just before the others arrived in order to try and play innocent. Twilight was the first to comment on the scene before them.
"What in Celestia's name happened here?"
Oh I knew that they wouldn't believe any story I made up, but I still felt like creating one anyway.
"It was the craziest yet coolest thing I've seen in quite a while. There was this twister that blew by and I was originally pretty freaked out, but then it started spitting stuff out. It went everywhere! I put a shield over the car and I just watched it go on and on. It was nuts!"
"Sure partner. So why is it only the guards are covered in gunk and nothin' else?"
"You'd have to ask them. They seemed to clean everything else up."
"An that's the story yer gonna stick with?"
"Hey we have plausible deniability anyway. No one saw us do anything and there isn't any evidence that can link us to it. Just because I made up a fun story to explain it doesn't mean you can pin it on us," I finished looking away and crossing my arms.
"The fact that ya did it does though."
"Looking guilty isn't a factor in actual guilt."
"Maybe not, but ya certainly look mighty guilty a somethin'."
A brief flash of the car incident once again brought my mood down. Thankfully, Twilight got us back on track before I had a chance to dwell on it.
"Why don't we save this for later? We have a problem than needs solving."
"Yeah," I chimed in, "and I think I know what it is."
"We all know what it is," Twilight responded. "The Doctor told us on the way here."
"He didn't want to wait until we were all together to do it?" Dash asked.
"He stated that you would understand the jist of it when you arrived," Rarity explained.
"He's right," I said, "but not the finer details. Didn't we fix these rifts the last time?"
"Follow me and I'll explain," the Doctor said while moving to the front and onwards to the rifts.
We all followed his measured gait towards the rifts.
"You see when all of the unfortunate events that occurred last time came together the six of you and Discord were thrown across time, space, and dimensions. Each of you landed in a foreign environment and were trapped there until Seth came and rescued you."
"We know that part already," Rainbow Dash interjected.
"I'm aware that you know. When he came to get you he entered through the corridor that was forced open between worlds and landed in the general vicinity of your dimensional coordinates. He soon located you all and brought you back here while sealing up the rifts behind you. However, when he did so he sealed up the rifts that only he left behind. Those being the one he arrived from and the ones he left and returned from. In other words only his entrance and exit points. It may have seemed like the problem was solved, but unfortunately for all of us he left a problem behind. He didn't seal up the arrival points that you came from."
"Aww what? I thought I came in where they did."
"I'm afraid not. You arrived at a location that was either relatively close to them or a means that would make finding them easier."
Our group arrived right by the rifts without any of the guards stopping us. It was obviously because they were expecting us. Still I thought someone would stop us just to ask for credentials or something along those lines. Differences in worlds and all that.
"In order to seal the rifts completely we will have to travel back to those worlds once more and have the corresponding pony seal the rift themselves. Unfortunately, I don't have a way to send you all together so only Seth and the pony that went there originally can go through."
"Oh come on!" Rainbow Dash yelled. "Why can't we all go?"
"Because it would take too much energy to send us all through," Twilight explained. "Believe me I tried to figure out a way to do it while on the train, but neither the Doctor nor myself could figure a way to make it happen. At most only one more of us could go through, but it would be really draining for both him and the coin. For him to go it doesn't take very much energy because his power is part of the energy of the rifts and-"
"Yeah, yeah a lot of egghead stuff I wouldn't understand," Rainbow Dash cut in with. "Fine. Go ahead and go already. Just know that I'm not happy about it."
"This time around should be easier," the Doctor continued. "Relatively speaking anyway. Both you and your coin should remember where you are headed and should be able to adjust for the time differential. You also shouldn't have to touch the coin directly to go together. However, the pony of the two will have to touch the rift directly with the coin in order for it to be sealed up."
"Isn't that kind of dangerous?"
"No, no, well, a little, but no, and certainly not to the coin."
"Ah good ole Doctor reassurance. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside doesn't it?"
"Well let's hurry this up then!" Dash yelled impatiently.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my coin. I really felt like naming it at that point. I originally called it Discord's coin, but he merely crafted it. I was the one who shaped it and it only listened to me or anyone I told it to. It somehow felt appropriate to name it. I stared at it for a moment before deciding on a suitable, yet cliche name.
"Eris."
"What was that darling?"
"Well, I figured that this coin is pretty important to me so I felt like I should give it a name. Discord made it. I use it. It's only appropriate that I name it after the Greek mythology's goddess of chaos. Three major theologies make a trinity and stuff."
A soft glow came from the coin, but disappeared quickly.
"I hope that means she likes it," I said cheekily.
Hey if I gave the coin a female name, why not refer to it as a she? Especially after that time she almost turned into a woman. It just seemed like the thing to do.
"I think we've gotten off topic," Twilight interjected. "We should start trying to fix these rifts."
My coin actually lit up in response to her statement. Six dots lit up on the edge of my coin. They didn't correspond to each of the ponies. Instead one lit up in each direction that the six rifts were in. That did make me think about something.
"Why isn't there one for Discord?"
"His was sealed when he returned here before I surmise. He returned here on his own after all."
"That doesn't make any sense. It isn't at all like the others."
"Well, he is chaos after all."
"Since when is 'just because' an answer for the Doctor?"
"This isn't the time to be having this argument," Twilight said interposing herself between us.
"I'm not so certain it isn't, but I'll trust you on this right now."
It was odd. I had thought that I trusted the Doctor, but here I was challenging him on these issues. Should I have though? He is the smartest person I've ever heard of. Maybe he just knew these things because of prior experience? Twilight had a point though. It wasn't the time to talk. It was time to save the world.
I turned and walked over in front of one of the rifts. The coin started to glow once again and the symbols started to move around. They eventually settled and Applejack's cutie mark displayed prominently on the face. It didn't take a genius to figure out what it meant.
"Alright Applejack. You're first up."
She gave a determined nod and walked up to my side. I placed my hand on her neck and reached out to touch the rift.
"Good luck you two!"
I touched the rift and there was a flash of light that enveloped my vision. I didn't even notice the transition until my eyes cleared up. We were standing in the middle of a sidewalk in an urban area. The tall skyscrapers around us were slightly disorienting. Not too much for me to notice something kind of interesting. Not that far away from us was a tall building with some very familiar lettering down the side of the building: Vlad Masters & Associates.
"Did we seriously come right back to where we started? Not a bad choice, but-"
I was interrupted by a loud crash as something cam flying through the wall of the building at a high velocity. Not high enough that I couldn't tell what it was. I guess I ought to say who it was. I had managed to arrive, to my best guess, just at the point in time where Applejack had kicked Vlad right out of his own building. It was just too good to be true. A snap of my fingers and his trajectory literally shifted ninety degrees downward. With the same speed intact, he let out a resounding crash as he impacted into the street less than ten feet away from us. I smirked a bit as I could hear him groaning in the middle of the small crater he made.
"How ya feeling buddy?" I quipped.
His head managed to snap up upon hearing me and a slow turn of his head brought his eyes to mine.
"You..." he seethed. "You ruined EVERYTHING!!!"
He stood up shakily out of the crater and glared venomously at me.
"Yeah, I'm sure you had some awesome plan for something that's beyond my comprehension. Textbook villain. Now, let's hear you spout off another line for your predicament."
Another snap of my fingers and a pair of glowing, green shackles formed around his forearms. Almost immediately, it looked like his whole body was being shocked cartoonishly. After several seconds of this his body turned from his ghost form into his human one. Shortly afterwards he collapsed in an unconscious heap.
"What in tarnation just happened?"
"I did something that I'd been thinking about after I got sent back to Earth. It's sort of a to do list now. Basically, The several days after I came back home I was thinking about all the things that I did. While I did, I thought about what I might do if I ever came back. Most of those things applied to the six worlds I visited through these rifts. Vlad here was one of them."
I levitated Vlad's unconscious body into the air and started walking towards the building he was ejected from.
"I felt kind of bad that we just ended up accidentally helping Vlad escape. This does a very nice job of stopping that problem from happening. The other issue is that woman right there."
Applejack looked to where I was pointing. It was a woman in her late teens shivering on the front steps of the Masters building. She was holding herself and rocking back and forth slightly.
"That woman was an android that I turned into a human woman. I really screwed up there. I turned her into a real person with real feelings and just left her there while I went inside to deal with Vlad. That was terrible of me to do."
"That's puttin it mildly. So what are ya plannin tah do now? Ya ain't just gonna leave her there are ya?"
"No, but that was the problem. Turning her back would be cruel. Instead, I'm going to do something that I just learned I could do."
"And what would that be?"
I let out a sigh as we got to where the woman was. She looked up from her rocking position and her eyes went wide as she saw me. Those bloodshot, tear-soaked eyes really hit me hard.
"Don't tell the others alright?"
I didn't give her a chance to respond before I placed my hand on the woman's head and began to seep my magic into her head. She seemed to freeze in place as her eyes just stared straight ahead with her pupils dilated. I'm pretty sure Applejack wanted to ask me what I was doing, but she refrained from doing so. I'm glad she did because what I was doing was delicate work. I wanted to fix my mistake, but I didn't want to take away her new found humanity so I decided on a third option. I gave her false memories. I had no idea how to craft a lifetime's worth of them so I settled on her having amnesia and getting a job here to help pay medical expenses. I fucking hated having to do it then, especially with the incident with Rainbow Dash happening so recently. I did this to myself, though, so I would pay the appropriate consequences. Soon enough, I had finished and put her to sleep.
"You mind tellin' me what that was ya did?"
"You remember what Discord did to you when you met him?" I asked while creating a pillow and laying her down on it.
"I remember him messin' with our heads a bit."
"It turns out I'm a natural at it," I said while continuing on to the building. "So much so that I can do it easily."
"That ain't somethin' ta be proud of ya know?"
"I never said it was. Now, I want to make a badass entrance so it's time to make the magic happen."
"You wh-"
I cut off whatever Applejack was going to say by tossing Vlad through the now closed doors that I came through in the first place. No idea why they were closed or better yet why no one was guarding them. It made my entrance work so I didn't question it. The doors flew off the hinges as Vlad flew into the room that I last found myself in from before. Needless to say, all eyes were on the scene of Vlad bound in a heap on the floor followed by training their eyes on me. I simply took off my regular glasses and put a pair of sunglasses that I pulled from literally nowhere onto my face and magicked my voice to that of Bender.
"I'm back baby!"